Authentication key exchange protocols enable communication entities to agree on a shared secret value over an insecure public channel. Conventional authentication key exchange protocols rely on mathematical problems that can be broken by Shor's algorithm executed on a quantum computer. This study proposes a quantum-safe authentication protocol that uses the CRYSTALS-Kyber post-quantum cryptographic primitive and Elliptic-Curve Cryptography. The primary application area of the proposed scheme is smart-city infrastructures and resource-constrained environments. This protocol is motivated by the scheme of Parameswarath et al. Their solution lacks perfect forward secrecy and protection against denial-of-service attacks, and it is practically infeasible. The proposed scheme addresses those limitations. The scheme presented in this study was analyzed in the Real-or-Random formal security model. Additionally, the formal security verifier ProVerif was used to verify security properties, including message integrity, strong authentication, and session key secrecy. Moreover, this document includes an informal security analysis that demonstrates a wide range of security features. This study also contains a performance analysis of the proposed scheme along with other recently published schemes. The total computation costs at the IoT device and the Cloud Server are 0.2014 and 0.216 milliseconds, respectively. The storage cost for both the IoT device and the Cloud Server is 2545 bytes. The total communication cost for authentication messages is 1687 bytes. Finally, the presented protocol was simulated using the NS3 network simulator. The measured values for Packet Delivery Ratio, End-to-End delay, and Throughput in a scenario with 40 devices are 99.07\%, 3.54 ms, and 162.92 kbps, respectively.
Authentication key exchange protocols enable communication entities to agree on a shared secret value over an insecure public channel. Conventional authentication key exchange protocols rely on mathematical problems that can be broken by Shor's algorithm executed on a quantum computer. This study proposes a quantum-safe authentication protocol that uses the CRYSTALS-Kyber post-quantum cryptographic primitive and Elliptic-Curve Cryptography. The primary application area of the proposed scheme is smart-city infrastructures and resource-constrained environments. This protocol is motivated by the scheme of Parameswarath et al. Their solution lacks perfect forward secrecy and protection against denial-of-service attacks, and it is practically infeasible. The proposed scheme addresses those limitations. The scheme presented in this study was analyzed in the Real-or-Random formal security model. Additionally, the formal security verifier ProVerif was used to verify security properties, including message integrity, strong authentication, and session key secrecy. Moreover, this document includes an informal security analysis that demonstrates a wide range of security features. This study also contains a performance analysis of the proposed scheme along with other recently published schemes. The total computation costs at the IoT device and the Cloud Server are 0.2014 and 0.216 milliseconds, respectively. The storage cost for both the IoT device and the Cloud Server is 2545 bytes. The total communication cost for authentication messages is 1687 bytes. Finally, the presented protocol was simulated using the NS3 network simulator. The measured values for Packet Delivery Ratio, End-to-End delay, and Throughput in a scenario with 40 devices are 99.07%, 3.54 ms, and 162.92 kbps, respectively.
The explosive growth of smart city infrastructures demands secure and private message exchange between heterogeneous IoT devices deployed in the city. Standard authentication schemes, primarily based on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) or symmetric primitives, are vulnerable to future quantum adversaries and, thus, are not suitable for extended deployment in public urban settings. In this work, we introduce a new post-quantum anonymous authentication scheme that is based on key encapsulation via CRYSTALS-Kyber and signatures via CRYSTALS-Dilithium. This scheme is able to provide mutual authentication, user anonymity, perfect forward secrecy, and lightweight communication, making it applicable to resource-constrained environments in typical scenarios of smart cities. We provide a formal security proof of our construction under the RealOr-Random model for quantum adversaries (ROR-Q) and an informal analysis showing security against a number of attacks, including impersonation, replay, man-in-the-middle, and key compromise. We provide experimental evaluation on constrained platforms to show the feasibility of the protocol in terms of computational cost and the efficiency of the proposed solution for bandwidth validation for modern smart city applications.
The rapid expansion of Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems has introduced significant security challenges due to resource-constrained devices, heterogeneous network architectures, and largescale connectivity. Traditional authentication and key exchange mechanisms, primarily based on classical cryptographic algorithms such as RSA and ECC, are vulnerable to future quantum computing attacks. The emergence of quantum algorithms, particularly Shor’s algorithm, threatens the long-term confidentiality and integrity of IoT communications. This paper proposes a Quantum-Resistant Authentication and Key Exchange Protocol specifically designed for secure IoT architectures. The proposed framework integrates post-quantum cryptographic primitives, including lattice-based key exchange mechanisms and hash-based authentication schemes, optimized for low computational overhead suitable for constrained IoT devices. The protocol ensures mutual authentication, forward secrecy, and resistance against quantum adversaries while maintaining minimal communication latency. Security analysis demonstrates robustness against replay, man-in-the-middle, and key-compromise attacks. Performance evaluation shows that the proposed solution achieves a balance between quantum security strength and resource efficiency, making it suitable for next-generation IoT deployments in smart cities, healthcare systems, and industrial automation.
In emerging environments such as cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT), secure authentication and key negotiation play a crucial role in protecting data transmitted over public networks. However, many existing authentication protocols are still designed based on classical public-key cryptography primitives, and quantum computing may threaten their security. To address this challenge, we propose a post-quantum authentication and key agreement protocol that uses the lattice-based Kyber key encapsulation mechanism (KEM). Our proposed protocol integrates cryptographic authentication, smart card protection, and post-quantum key encapsulation mechanisms, enabling mutual authentication between users and servers and securely establishing session keys. The security of the protocol is formally analyzed in the Real-or-Random (ROR) model under the random oracle assumption and the IND-CCA security of the underlying KEM scheme. Furthermore, through informal security analysis, we have further demonstrated that the protocol possesses important security properties, including anonymity, untraceability, perfect forward confidentiality, and resistance to known attacks. In addition, the computational cost and communication overhead of the proposed scheme are evaluated and compared with several representative authentication protocols. The results show that the proposed protocol can provide strong security while maintaining low computational cost and communication overhead.
The emergence and growth of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) have transformed the way healthcare services are delivered, but this growth comes with its own security challenges, especially with the emergence of quantum computing. This paper presents a lightweight, privacy-preserving authentication scheme for edge-based IoMT environments, integrating CRYSTALS-Kyber Key Encapsulation Mechanism (KEM) to securely establish session keys between participating entities and resilience against quantum attacks, while CRYSTALS-Dilithium is utilized as the digital signature scheme to ensure message integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation. These NIST-standardized post-quantum primitives collectively strengthen the system's resistance against quantum adversaries and enhance overall cryptographic robustness. The proposed system comprises two phases: Registration and Authentication. During registration, patients, wearable devices that utilize Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs), and medical specialists register with a Trusted Authority via edge nodes. The authentication phase encompasses mutual authentication among patients, devices, medical specialists, edge nodes, and cloud servers, ensuring that only authorized entities access sensitive health information. In addition, the proposed scheme employs the formal security properties, such as authenticity and secrecy, are verified using the AVISPA tool under the Dolev-Yao model, with results confirming that all defined goals are achieved and no attacks are found. Performance evaluations indicate that the scheme is computationally efficient and suitable for resource-constrained IoMT devices. Furthermore, BAN logic is employed to formally verify the correctness of the authentication protocol, demonstrating that mutual authentication is securely established among the participating entities under well-defined trust assumptions. By integrating post-quantum cryptographic techniques, this authentication framework addresses emerging security challenges posed by quantum computing, aligning with the objectives of enhancing edge-based consumer electronics devices and Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems with post-quantum cryptosystems.
The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) technology into transportation systems to enable real-time data collection and analysis helps to achieve increased efficiency and enhanced user experience. However, the IoT network faces significant cybersecurity challenges, especially with the advent of quantum computing, which poses a serious threat to classical security schemes. This paper proposes an authentication protocol for IoT-based transportation systems using CRYSTALS-Kyber, a lattice-based Post-Quantum Key Encapsulation Mechanism (PQKEM), and Quantum Random Number Generators (QRNGs) together with lightweight cryptographic operations. In contrast to the existing literature, the proposed protocol is lightweight and provides protection against conventional and quantum attacks while adhering to standards and ensuring interoperability with future systems. We provide a formal security proof of the proposed protocol using the Real-Or-Random (RoR) model and analyze its security under the Canetti-Krawczyk (CK) adversary model. The performance analysis shows that the protocol offers strong security and scalability with minimal computational overhead compared to existing schemes. Additionally, we assess the performance of the proposed protocol through simulations conducted with the NS3 simulator.
As smart home devices become more widely available, their limited resources and potential exposure to various types of cyber-attacks make it difficult for the traditional security protocols to remain effective. Cloud-enabled smart home IoT platforms have helped to improve device intelligence and overall efficiency when controlling them, but the additional use of cloud computing has also created additional complexity in controlling these devices through user-defined automated rules and remote access via vendor apps. Conventional security schemes do not consider these types of control models, nor do they provide a reasonable balance of the additional computational overhead introduced, the efficiency of communications, and the level of security provided. Additionally, with the introduction of quantum computing, current public key cryptography primitives will become obsolete, necessitating the requirement for an adoption of post-quantum security measures. To overcome these issues, this paper presents a proposal for a lightweight mutual authentication and key agreement scheme that employs post-quantum cryptography primitives to facilitate a secure interaction between the user’s cloud platforms, smart home devices, and the user. The protocol also supports remote secure control, while providing the resistance to both classical and quantum attacks. The proposed protocol has been thoroughly evaluated through formal verification using the ProVerif tool and multiple heuristic evaluation techniques. Additionally, the security features of the proposed protocol have been compared to those of several existing methods, providing evidence that it offers improved security features, forward secrecy, and quantum resistance while maintaining a lightweight profile compatible with the limitations of modern smart homes.